


To a Timetraveler, Rules Are More Like Guidelines

by selenaquana



Series: All the People Who Would Have Been Better Guardians for Harry [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Anxiety Attacks, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Kidnapping, Married Couple, Murder, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, terrorist attack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:47:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27975366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selenaquana/pseuds/selenaquana
Summary: Hermione Granger-Weasley and Ronald Weasley are done with wizards and their notions of reality. They can't save everyone, but they'll save who they can.
Relationships: Hermione Granger & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Molly Weasley & Ron Weasley, Sirius Black & Hermione Granger, Sirius Black & Remus Lupin
Series: All the People Who Would Have Been Better Guardians for Harry [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1564921
Comments: 97
Kudos: 230





	1. Prologue

Hermione’s chest heaved even as she tried to keep her breathing quiet. She held out a hand, signaling to the group of civilians, office workers, and researchers behind her to stay still and quiet. Ahead, the atrium of the Ministry opened up-well, as open as the atrium of the Ministry was ever really open, being underground and all. The giant golden fountain gleamed in pieces on the floor. Dobby’s head was kicked near the doorway Hermione and her group huddled in, Kreacher’s a few feet closer to the center of the room. The Firenze’s legs were strewn about, and George, Remus and Tonks’s faces had all been hit with so many curses, Hermione could only identify who they were meant to represent because she knew what they had looked like when the fountain was first unveiled by Harry four years before. He’d had it commissioned to show some of the ‘real heroes’ who helped pave the way for after the war, with dozens of people represented, if in about half their real-life size. 

The walls and floors showed curse marks and spell damage in various places. A few patches of ice dotted the floor, as did pools of blood and acid. Hermione counted ten people downed amongst the rubble, although piles of debris hid her view of entire sections of the room. The good news was those piles could be used to shield the people she wanted to lead out. The bad news was they could also shield attackers. The wall where the floo entrances lived, beyond the security checkpoint, was completely destroyed. Hermione had no idea if the apparition point was warded, but knew better than to risk splinching in this environment. 

The witch sent out a few scans, and all came back negative. That was fine. Great. So instead of her being able to pick off the terrorists who were definitely hidden somewhere in the room to pick off anyone escaping, she’d get surprised by an ambush. Fantastic. 

This is why Hermione hated going against smart enemies. They did things like wearing amulets to hide them from scans. 

Slowly, Hermione took the dozen people following her from cover to cover, making her way across the room. She kept to the edges, hoping to at least reduce the possible angles of attack by using the walls. She was a quarter of the way to the exit when she bumped into a redhead in auror robes. 

“Ron!”

He quickly sliced a finger across his lips, and Hermione quieted. While Ron examined the group she was leading out, Hermione looked over her husband. Auror training, mixed with the hand-to-hand fighting classes she’d convinced Ron to take before she’d let him go on patrol, had been good for him, filling her husband’s lanky form out into something much more sturdy. As Ron always preferred physical activity to academics, he had taken to the training like a fish to water, a situation that was helped along by his positive relationship with Dudley Dursley and their weekly sparing matches. 

The exposure to Dudley, who had cut off all ties with his parents not long after the war ended and immediately reconciled with Harry, had been good for Ron in other ways. Before, Ron’s interactions with muggle society were limited, and he dismissed most of it as ‘barmy’ or just a way to get around not having magic. Dudley, with a matter-of-fact view of his own life and daily interaction with the muggle world had been able to give Ron the sobering realization that muggle tools weren’t a way to get around not having natural magic, but a way to get around nature itself. And another friend, one willing to teach Ron all kinds of sports and expose him to a much wider world, was much appreciated by Hermione and Harry, what with their quieter preferences. The fact that Ginny enjoyed making Dudley angry was really just a bonus. 

With quick, short gestures, Ron communicated the path he’d created for those escaping the attacks. Out towards the fountain, then a quick run to the exit, the way shielded by strategically placed rubble and notice-me-nots. Ron had knocked out the terrorists (a remnant of the Death Eaters, apparently) and made way for escapees, but he had no idea when those still attacking the lower levels might return or when reinforcements might arrive. 

Checking over her group to ensure she still had everyone, Hermione nodded. 

They had just loaded the last two clerical personnel into the lift when a line of green exploded the rock right next to Hermione’s head. 

The scuffle, from there, was fairly standard for the pair of them. Ron tried to herd the five attackers into less defensible positions, while Hermione threw the most creative spells she could in the strangest ways, in order to keep the enemies on their toes. Unfortunately, without Harry’s superior aim, speed and power to lay down covering fire, the couple were stuck in place. They had one of the robed men down, but they also had no idea when reinforcements might arrive. And if even another two wizards showed up….

They needed something new. A game changer. Once more, Hermione scanned the room. Golden fountain piece, collapsed ceiling, dead Wizengamot member still in their purple robes, fallen lighting fixture, fallen Unspeakable…

That, Hermione thought, might be useful. 

“Cover me for twenty seconds.” She told Ron, struggling to balance her voice so her husband could hear it but the enemy couldn’t. Ron nodded. “Now!”

A barrage of stunners and cutting hexes pealed from a unicorn-horn wand as Hermione summoned the body, searching it as quickly as she could. Parchment in the pockets, a flash drive, a time turner, a potion that looked and smelled like Polyjuice.

A time turner. That… that she could make work. 

“Ron, I have an idea!” Hermione said, popping above the barricade just long enough to throw the time turner around Ron’s neck as well as her own. They’d have to aim for a time when the atrium would be abandoned, or alternately, crowded enough nobody would notice them appearing out of thin air. Hermione decided the early morning was the best choice, but just to make sure nobody looked twice, she threw on the Unspeakable’s robe, revealing a balding man with a long grey beard and silver spectacles. 

But just as her finger touched the hourglass, Ron shouted “Hermione!” and the world went green.  



	2. Rule number 1: Never let your past self die. We dont know what would happen, but its probably bad.

She woke up in a field of wheat. 

Around her, stalks smoldered on the ground in a circle. The air was filled with the scent of magic and ozone and death. Ash filled Hermione’s nose, she had to sit up to cough it out. On her right, Ron laid out on the ground, glaring at the sky as if it had personally offended him.

“Hermione?” Ron said, once she had cleared her airways. “Tell me we didn’t just land a thousand years in the past or something?”

Hermione jolted. “I don’t see how… well… time turners aren’t supposed to work like that…”

“They also aren’t supposed to change your location, just time around you. And I don’t remember you turning time in a field. I’m trying to map time with the stars but, well….” Ron turned sheepish. “You were always way better at astronomy, and that class was over a decade ago…”

“Ron, you were required to know how to navigate by stars as part of Auror training.”

“Well… yeah… I passed the test… and then… kind of… completely forgot all of it? It’s not like I’d ever have to use it!”

“And you haven’t used Locus because… what? Did you snap your wand again?”

Ron gaped for a moment. “Oh yeah, I forgot.”

While Ron pulled out his wand to find their location, Hermione stood up, trying to get the lay of the land. The flat fields waved off for kilometers in each direction, periodically broken by stands of trees. A small rise off to her right-the east, based on the stars-had a line of smoke coming from it. So, if they were somewhere they couldn’t apparate out of, there might at least be someone to ask for help, either in the form of a phone or simple directions. Unless they were in the past. In wich case, there were going to be a lot more problems than just finding their way to civilization. 

With that thought, Hermione pulled out her own dragon heartstring wand and cast an expanded tempus. 1:28 AM, November 1st, 1981.

1981\. 

Bloody hell. She was getting too old for this nonsense. 

Ron, who had come over and was now looking over her shoulder, echoed her sentiments. 

“How the hell did this even happen?” she asked the stars. Surprisingly, they remained silent. 

“You know of research into what happens when you hit a time turner with an AK?’’ Ron asked with a raised eyebrow. 

“Well no but… oh damn it all! How are we going to live another twenty years and keep ourselves hidden? There’s no way we can insert ourselves back into our lives with that kind of time lost! The number of paradoxes we could make!”

While Hermione paced, Ron bent to examine the broken bits of glass and spilled sand on the ground between the divots where they had landed. 

“Hermione?”

“Yeah?”

“Question; if we cant avoid making paradoxes, what happens to us?”

“I don’t know, Ronald, Nobody’s ever done it before! That’s kind of the point!”

“Well, should we maybe… check up on ourselves? I mean, isn’t the whole point of that buttermoth effect…”

“Butter _fly_ effect, you and I both know you know what that is, don’t you dare pretend otherwise, you berk.”

“… that we might not even know what the consequences might be? Way I see it, if we cant preserve everything, we can at least preserve three people. But that means we have to watch them.”

Hermione nodded along. “Right. On the large scale, undoing our own existences would be a pretty big problem. Best to keep an eye on ourselves.”

“Right. And what happens if someone comes, say, looking into the weird magical discharge the Ministry probably just picked up, and tracks us to our past selves? I’d have anti-trackers on me, thanks to the Burrow’s wards, but you…”

Hermione swore. “My parents. Off to Crawley first, then?”

“Best cover our tracks first.”

They were out of sync; normally, they had a third wand when they had to go off the grid, but they made do. Two loud cracks later, and the field as silent as they found it. 

They landed in Hermione’s back garden, only to hear a soul-rending scream. 

\---------------------------------------------

Hermione wrapped her transfigured jacket tightly about herself as she watched the paramedics pack up their ambulance, while the couple cried on their front stoop. Between the notice-me-nots and the crowd of people, they were just two additional lookey-loos in the crowd of neighbors, watching Drs. Granger fall apart as the body of their daughter was taken to the morgue.

“So. That’d be the cost, then. “

She felt Ron nod from where he had his arms around her. 

She let loose a deep sigh. “Should we talk to them, you think?”

Ron shrugged. “They’re your parents, love. How do you think they’ll react, if their adult daughter from the future, who’s cooling corpse they just held, came up and introduced herself?”

“You don’t think it would give them closure?”

Ron was silent for several moments. 

“I think, that they’ll move on. Maybe they’ll make you a sibling. Maybe some day, when its not as fresh, there’ll be room to process you. But now… no, I think closure is the last thing that would do.”

Hermione reluctantly nodded. “Do you think… the Burrow? Should we?”

Ron shook his head again. “No, it wouldn’t end well. If Mum reacts anything like your mum did, like Mum did when she saw Fred… no. Just… I wouldn’t be able to hold myself back like you are.” A low chuckle rumbled on Hermione’s back. “I’d probably go in there, wand ready, and have bats out my nose before I could explain anything.”

“So, do we… I mean… the timeline’s already screwed…”

“I guess… if its just the two of us, there’s one last person we should try to protect.”

Hermione felt something fall into place. “Yes. We wont go to Hogwarts with him or be his friends, but we could be something else.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a reminder, this story is now going to publish every two weeks. See you in a bit and happy holidays!


	3. Rule Number 2; Do not interact with the lives of people you know. Stick to people who will never meet you if you can.

Hermione Granger _glared_ at the door in front of her, as she cradled her best friend in her arms and debated whether it was worth it. Ron, she could tell, was barely holding himself back. 

“They haven’t done anything yet.” She said.

Ron grunted. “Neither has Malfoy or Greyback, but we aren’t opposed to cursing them if we can.”

“They were part of the first war. Those two weren’t, horrible as they may be.”

The night was quiet and cold. Hermione recast the warming charm on Harry. 

“It isn’t even that I want revenge so much. It’s just… how they’ll treat Dudley…” Ron said, examining the door as if it was a particularly intriguing piece of art. Or he was planning on cursing it. Really, given what he had eventually done to the portrait of Walburga Black when Harry decided to move into Grimmauld permanently, the two looks were practically synonymous now. 

That sentiment about the Dursleys, Hermione understood. She wasn’t friends with their son, not like Ron, but that didn’t mean she didn’t care. 

“We can come back, maybe? Find a way to be involved, nudge him towards the straight path.”

“I reckon we have years. Nineteen eighty-bloody-one.”

“Indeed.”

Two cracks shattered the silence, and Ron and Hermione were in front of the hotel in London where they had their muggle wedding reception. A quick transfiguration on a few tissues took care of the expense. The shower took care of the blood and dust they had hidden under their glamours. 

The suite was cozy, a kitchenette Hermione had asked for so she could heat food for Harry without raising suspicion took up a fourth of the sitting room. There was a single attached bedchamber, with a large bed Hermione knew the three of them would share. Piling up had become a source of comfort between the three of them, to the point where Ginny kept a guest room at the ready at Grimmauld so that Ron and Hermione could come by when the PTSD got too bad. Ginny would declare those her “girl’s nights”, taking advantage of her husband being out of her bed to go clubbing with Luna and some other friends and return as late as she wanted without waking her jumpy, curse-happy husband. Hermione had always thought it wonderful how much they trusted each other, Ginny to let Harry sleep in the same bed as another woman, and Harry to not question what Ginny got up to with her friends on their nights out. She wished she had been able to trust Ron so much in the beginnings of their marriage; it seemed it took Ron and Hermione much longer to find the ease of married life that seemed to come to Harry and Ginny naturally. 

Ron had a few fractures in his arm and a sprained elbow from the fight. Hermione had several burns. They would need potions to deal with both, and the goblins were very particular about not accepting transfigured muggle money for exchange. It would seem they’d need to let it heal naturally, a simple splinting spell and some muggle bandages would do for now. 

Harry, bless him, simply slumbered on the bed. 

“So…” Hermione started. “Plan?”

Ron kept staring out the window. The night was relatively warm for November, and the sky was open, allowing the vast tapestry of stars to fight for visibility against the bright gleam of England’s capitol city. “We agree the timeline’s ruined, yeah?”

Hermione twitched the blanket about Harry, who slumbered on. It was a bright quilt with patterns of brooms and snitches. It made her giggle a bit inside, to see how early Harry would be connected to one of his favorite pastimes, had the worst not happened. She and Ron would have to make sure he learned to fly earlier this time. Maybe that way, Hermione could teach him some restraint and safety before Ron’s fanaticism took over. 

All of which was moot if they didn’t figure out a way to establish an actual life for him. Their house likely didn’t exist yet, nor would any bank accounts they could use. They both knew more than enough to find jobs in the wixen world, Hermione in enchanting or potioneering or… well, there was quite a lot Hermione could do even with the skills she had learned at Hogwarts, let alone auror training. Ron was no Harry Potter, but his defense skills would be useful in a world that had only just defeated a Dark Lord, with tensions running high and the Death Eaters, bereft of their leader, running amok. That chaos could work for or against them; on the one hand, people crawling out of the woodwork now that the danger was past would be expected, and might provide cover. But at the same time, wixen were more suspicious, and not having records of their existence would prove problematic. 

The shuffling of her husband, still awaiting an answer, drew her back to the conversation.

“Definitely. If our deaths didn’t seal it, taking Harry did.”

“Right.” He stared at the stars, nearly washed out entirely by the lights of London. “Well, money first. We literally only have the clothes on our backs and our wands.”

“How to get some funds…” Especially considering the toddler they were now taking care of. Merlin and Morgana, Hermione hadn’t thought she’d have to mother a child ever, let alone her best friend. She had no idea what to even gete him, but she knewe from Molly that children were expensive. 

Ron’s eyes got a very particular, I-love-noticing-things-nobody-else-does glint in them. “Remember that movie? Pack to the Future?”

Hermione glared. “We are not gambling for a living, Ronald!”

“I didn’t say that!” Ron put his hands in the air. “How much did you say stocks in Apple are worth now? Or Windows?”

And once more, he stated the obvious that had completely passed Hermione by. There was a fine line between gambling and investing, which everyone in the wizarding world exploited ot some degree or another. But when you knew which companies were about to explode over the next two decades, was it really gambling? After all, there was no risk. But even with that said…

Hermione cocked her head. “We still need money to start with. Transfiguring only gets us so far, it wears off eventually…”

“Well, easy enough. You know of any disreputable organizations the world would be better off without?”

“Ronald Weasley, are you proposing we steel from the criminally rich?”

“You didn’t have a problem when we stole from Lestrange.”

Hermione grinned. “Indeed.”


	4. Rule number 3; Don't cause any major financial differences. The butterfly effect applies to economies too.

One of the many perks of being in law enforcement; the largest, most recognizable takedowns in recent history would be used as examples in training. This meant that, thanks to Hermione’s excellent memory, they had a list of criminals who were particularly wealthy and not yet arrested. From there, glamouring themselves to look like the criminals in question, lightly confounding the bank tellers, and a few careful spells to make sure they couldn’t be tracked by the Ministry took care of everything. 

Neither had ever seen so much muggle money in their lives. It spilled out of black duffel bags-because Ron had insisted that if they were going to become villains, they might as well do it properly- and onto the beige carpet of the hotel suite. The duffels were accompanied by a large variety of shopping bags, which likewise spilled clothes, toys, and plenty of books on to the floor. They had decided to buy necessities immediately after the theft, just in case the serial numbers on all this money were about to be tracked, so that the various locations they apparated too would possibly spread the money even farther and make tracing the two ex-law-wixen impossible. (Any protests Ron made about books not counting as necessities were blithely ignored by his wife.)

“So.” Hermione said, when they sat in their room once more, newly bought toys entertaining Harry on the floor. The way he cuddled the black and grey dogs, as well as the stuffed stag, was particularly adorable. He had reached for them in the toy aisle, and the couple were more than happy to indulge him. After all, reinforcing the idea that those specific animals meant safety was likely a good idea. 

Harry’s new outfit proudly proclaimed “I solemnly swear I’m up to no good!” Ron had clearly had far too much fun, when he realized one of the stores in the mall could screen-print anything. Half of Harry’s new wardrobe said either that, “Mischief Managed!”, “My Mom’s the best, so (picture of a face with a tongue sticking out)”, “Future Evil Overlord!”, “Go Cannons!”, “Single and Unemployed”, “Nap. Build. DESTROY. Repeat.”, “Stealing Hearts and Blasting Farts”, “I’M THE BOSS until mom gets home”, “Planes, Trains & Being a Pain”, “Kisses 1£ (university is expensive)”, “My Parents think they’re in charge…”, “Stinky”, or “I saved the world by existing. You’re welcome”. 

Hermione wasn’t sure about the whole calling themselves Harry’s parents thing, but as Ron had put it, “He needs someone, Mione, and are you honestly going to trust anyone else with him?” which, she had to admit, was a good point. 

“Tomorrow I head to a bank and open an account, we start investing in companies we know are going to boom. What else.”

Ron looked up from the pile of onesies he was giggling over. Really, any time she tried to make him shop for himself, all she got were groans and complaints, but the second they were shopping for Harry, suddenly he was overjoyed! It was ridiculous!

“Get a house I suppose. Figure out a way to forge documents so we legally exist and can keep Dumbledore from trying to put Harry back with those people.”

Hermione wholeheartedly agreed. The day, a year after the end of the war, when they finally got Harry drunk enough to talk, had been a shock to her. The fact that her best friend was _abused_ , and she was too young and stupid to ever notice, had finally come into focus. No, there was not a single universe in which she let anyone, including and especially that arsehole who groomed her best friend to commit suicide on demand, mess with Harry. And on that note. 

“I meant with everything else. Dumbledore. Sirius. Voldemort. Pettigrew. Malfoy.”

“Umbridge.” Ron added. 

“Right.” Hermione said. “If we’re going to mess with the timeline, there’s a lot of good we could do. Greyback, as well.”

Ron sat with Harry on his blanket, and started making the little blue car fly, which Harry apparently thought was enthralling. 

“I think we need the lay of the land first. Get a house, make sure we can’t be found. Start gathering information. First rule of working in enemy territory; don’t be overeager.”

That phrase, _enemy territory_ , was enough to set her mind racing. He was right, she needed to think of the wizarding world as enemy territory. Territory with no allies, no real resources, not even identities to fall back on…

“But every second we wait is another second Greyback could bite another child, or Sirius goes just a bit more insane…”

Her hands were shaking, and the room was starting to feel chilly. Some distracted part of her mind noticed and pointed out she should turn the temperature up. She didn’t want Harry to get a chill, the night on the doorstep was bad enough.

“Yeah, but if we move now, we could spook Pettigrew. We don’t know if he’ll go to the Burrow as it is, what with me being dead, and we need him to prove Sirius’s innocence.”

“Fair enough. But what about…”

“Hermione! Deep breaths.”

She forced herself to take a breath. Another. Ron picked up Harry and put him in Hermione’s lap, placing one of her hands on Harry’s chest and the other on Ron’s. Hermione tried to listen to his instructions, mimicking first Harry’s rapid baby breaths, then Ron’s deeper, more methodical and meditative exhales. Slowly, the mounting panic attack eased. Only Ron could see them coming this early; she couldn’t remember the last time she had one when he was around to cut them off. She wasn’t even in a bad one; he just knew the signs and caught them early. 

“Right. Sorry. Thank you.”

Ron nodded. “You’re welcome. It’s not so bad; your parents aren’t even on the Death Eater’s radar. Ministry’s probably scrambling, between arrests and people giving bribes. Best if we let them-and ourselves-settle down a bit before we start changing things. But give it a couple months, and, well, lets just say I have some ideas for our least favorite terrorists and their half-blood, half-baked leader.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this is late. See you in a week and a half!


	5. Rule Number 4; Don't give authorities any reason to investigate you. You never know what kind of trouble they'll cause.

“Alright, Albus, what do you need?”

Minerva looked at her boss, who seemed to tower over her even while sitting. Bagnold and Crouch, sitting in chairs near the desk, were drinking tea. The little objects on the shelf were piping away merrily, completely at odds with the tense scene.

“Ah, yes, well. It appears I need you to do a bit of reconnaissance for me, as it were. I was just telling Millicent and Bartemius here about where we placed young Harry.”

Minerva knew that look. That was the look Albus got when he really, truly hoped he wasn’t about to be caught mid-manipulation. 

“Albus, I thought the whole point of placing him there was nobody, not even the Ministry, would suspect it?”

The room went deadly silent, as the three younger inhabitants realized exactly what might cause Albus to call them in the middle of the night. 

“You said he’d be safe there! Who has him!? Was it Malfoy!? Oh, I’ll rip that peacock’s feathers off one by one, just you see!”

“There is no evidence it was Death Eaters who took him, Minerva.” Albus attempted to sooth. Fawkes trilled an encouraging warble from his stand. 

“Where exactly did you put him, Albus? I can send aurors to secure the scene.” Crouch said. Minerva didn’t exactly get along with the dour man, but he had an impressive ability to cut through the bullshit of others-probably because he was so good at making up bullshit himself and knew the signs. 

Albus gave a deep sigh and reached for a lemon drop. Minerva noticed a slight twitch in Bagonold every time he did so. 

“A small house in Surrey. It is the home of Lily’s muggle sister and her family. Lily created powerful wards, tied to her bloodline. As soon as Petunia took Harry into her home, the wards should have activated, and made Harry all but invisible to any who served Voldemort.”

“So you handed the boy over to them?” Milicent asked. 

Albus hmed, but Minerva had no intention of letting him get away with it that easily. “He left the poor babe on the doorstep with a letter.” Minerva watched Bagnold’s face sour, as she put her tea down with a sharp click.

“Albus!” Bagnold scolded, “You didn’t! In the middle of the night! It’s _November_ in case you were unaware. What if an animal found him!” Minerva watched with some mildly suppressed amusement as Bartemius’s hand stopped halfway from palming his face. 

“I realize now this was not the wisest option.” No, you think? Whatever gave you that idea? ”At the time, I feared that if I suggested they had any kind of choice, they would not take him, and the wards would fail.” Ah, yes, people sometimes make choices Albus doesn’t agree with, we cant have that. ”I left warming charms and wards to ensure he went undisturbed.” Because charms and wards never fail. Clearly. Like the Fidelius. That worked so superbly well. 

At the numerous prevarications Albus was attempting to obscure his own guilt with, Minerva felt her own displeasure rising. She had thought the numerous decisions he mad, that she disagreed with and ended up having the right of, were made because of the complexities of the war. But what was truly so complex about young Harry’s situation? Hell, the only place that was never truly attacked was Hogwarts. Why not just have the boy fostered here! It wouldn’t be the first time a young child was raised on-site for their protection. But no, clearly, at least in this, it was a case of ‘I know best and all others must bow to my superior wisdom’ . Bloody git of an old goat. 

“Did the woman take the boy at all?” Crouch asked, hand twitching to his wand, as if he wanted to jump up and search immediately for the child. .

“No, the wards never solidified. There were no traces of magic, either.”

“Have you talked to the family?”

“No, I have not. Based on my past experience with Petunia, a confrontation would be… unlikely to bear fruit.”

Right. So clearly, a woman who every magical who ever met her thought was a shrew was going to take in the young son of a sister she hadn’t seen or talked to in two years, despite the risk it put her family in, was the best person to care for a young orphan. Honestly, why had Minerva gone along with this again?

Bagnold sighed. “Barty, I’ll ask you to open an official investigation. Albus, we need to alert the Prophet, put the word out that we need information. “

“Are we sure that publicizing this is the best decision?” Dumbledore wheedled. And at this point, it was wheedling in Minerva’s mind, all pretense of overarching wisdom had dissipated with the Potter child. “Could it not tip off the Death Eaters? If they aren’t the ones who took the boy, and we reveal that we don’t know where he is…”

“Oh, sod it all, Albus!” Minerva burst out, “It was all the secrecy you insisted on in the first place that got us into this mess! No, I won’t stand it, this is the end. Lily and James trusted you to protect them, but You-Know-Who found them anyways! I trusted you about Harry’s safety, and yet he’s been lost to us anyways! So you can take your instructions and shove them… you know what, that’s it!” 

With a flourish, Minerva pulled out her wand. “I, Minerva McGonagall, hereby resign from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, effective immediately!”

A flash of light lit from the tip of her wand, and she felt the wards leave her. 

“Minerva…”

“I’ve had it Albus! For years I’ve told you, over and over again, as you made mistakes, and never once have you listened! I stayed because I wanted to protect the children, but the time for that has ended! I’ve wanted to leave ever since my brother got killed by that bastard Rivers, and now that You-Know-Who is gone, I have little reason to stay. But hear me now Albus, if I find out another of your idiotic decisions puts a single student here in danger again, and you will have a far greater enemy that You-Know-Who ever dreamed of being. Minister Bagnold!”

The elderly witch seemed startled as the five-foot-five animagus turned to her. 

“I put myself at your service to aid in finding young Mr. Potter.”

For a moment, Minerva could practically see the gears turning in the old politician’s head. 

“I am unsure yet where your skills could be put to use. Bartemius?”

The head of the DMLE examined Minerva closely. “An animagus, let alone a transfiguration mistress? Oh yes, I can think of several things you could do to help us find the Potter boy.”

“Wonderful.” Bagnold said. Minerva saw a deep cunning in the woman’s eyes, and she was unsure whether she should be reassured by this, but her decision was made and she would stick to it for now. “Now, as to investigating whether the Death Eaters orchestrated the Potter boy’s disappearance. Bartemius, given that lies or omissions of any of the Death Eaters we have or are likely to have in custody could represent a clear and present danger to Mr. Potter, I hereby authorize you to use veritaserum on any and all arrested persons, as well as legilimency. Leave no stone unturned.”

“Is this really wise my dear? To strip people of their free will in that way?” Albus asked. 

Crouch nodded. “My pleasure. And yes, Albus, it is wise. Those dark bastards have blocked nine out of every ten subpoenas I’ve issued, let alone interrogations. But the kidnapping of an Heir to a pureblood line? They know better than to get in my way for an investigation like this.”

“And if we happen to find out anything else incriminating along the way…” Bagshot said.

“Exactly. Malfoy’s been trying to bribe his way out of charges since we arrested him a month ago. But a kidnapped child gets rid of most of his lawyer’s ways to stop me from a full veritaserum interrogation. Even if we don’t find Potter, this could make investigations and convictions much easier on my men, and free up time to search for Potter. Don’t you worry Professor McGonagall, Minister, it would take someone smarter than Merlin, Gamp, and all of us combined to keep us from finding Harry Potter.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I started posting this story when I had the rough draft completed. It was thirteen chapters long and sixteen thousand words long. 
> 
> I'm now up to eighteen chapters and twenty-three thousand words. And I'll probably have to add at least five chapters by the end of this darn it. 
> 
> On another note, I have at least three other stories to add to this series currently cooking away, because focusing on one thing at a time is for people with sanity in tact. 
> 
> All of this to say, constructive criticism is always welcome, as are ideas for other guardians for Harry. 
> 
> Please stay safe!


	6. Rule number 5: Don't interfere with your enemies, no matter how tempting it is. You never know what other enemies will fill the space they leave behind.

“Well, looks like Harry won’t be hearing a certain ferret reporting to dearest daddy when he goes to Hogwarts.” Ron said, as he put the Prophet on the table in front of him. Harry, who was going through a bit of a mimic-the-adults phase, was looking at the funny pages from the muggle paper seriously. Every once in a while, he’d point a picture out to one of his… parents… and giggle. 

“Oh really? They finally convict Malfoy then?” Hermione asked, as she read through the financial section of the London paper. It had only been six months, but the money was already flooding in. Even with the expense of the mansion, and of all the false papers they had to purchase from the black market, they had enough to last the rest of their lives easily. Hermione, in a turn Ron found hilarious, refused to call their house a mansion, even though it had more rooms than the small family of three would ever use. Ironic, how if he so much as called a spell flare red instead of mauve, he wasn’t showing proper precision of language, but they bought a mansion and suddenly such nitpicky distinctions were silly. 

“Seems so.” When Ron realized Hermione wasn’t going to continue the conversation, he returned to the article. Harry, meanwhile, turned over the funny pages with all seriousness. Hermione was insisting on teaching Harry to read, which Ron had thought stupid, until she actually started doing it. Now, he thought she was just frightening. Who teaches a toddler to read?

When Ron reached the last three paragraphs of the article on Malfoy, he froze. 

“Hermione? How well do you think our forged documents will hold up if we went to the House Elf Services Department?”

Hermione looked up. “We are not getting a house elf, Ronald! You know how I feel about that!”

Ron quickly realized the assumption she was making, given the vocal complaints he had made about cleaning the mansion, and moved to correct it.

“Not even if Malfoy’s been forced to sell Dobby?”

Hermione ripped the paper from his hands. 

“You must be… I don’t believe this! So Malfoy commits a crime using Dobby, and Dobby gets imprisoned at the Ministry and sold like chattel! And Narcissa Malfoy still gets money from the sale!? In what kind of backwards society does this make sense!”

Ron shrugged. “My guess? Malfoy tried to bribe his way out, but this isn’t like last time. Last time, they didn’t have Harry Potter gone missing. The Prophet’s been talking for months about how the Ministry started using Veritaserum on any Death Eaters in custody. That didn’t happen before. So whoever Malfoy bribed couldn’t get him out of Azkaban, but wanted to repay some of the bribe to keep Narcissa from going spare, so they tried to weasel in any way they could for her to still get _some_ gold, when the Ministry’s done confiscating everything.”

“Well, yes, that makes sense, but why must Dobby be punished?” Harry, who had noticed the change in demeanor, crossed his arms and huffed at his paper. The pout was absolutely adorable. 

“Because wizards are a backwards society of slaveholding morons?”

Hermione put the paper down and sighed. “Why do you want us to buy Dobby?”

“He’s loyal. He’ll protect Harry. And he deserves better to be kept at a cage at the HESD for years just because of Malfoy’s evil ways.”

Hermione seemed to agree with this. “And I suppose… well, House Elves tend to feel happier when they have somewhere to take care of, right? Even the free ones? I suppose we could offer to free him if he wants, and tell him his place here isn’t contingent on him agreeing…”

Ron took advantage of the tentative agreement and ran with it. “Plus, if we have him cleaning up and cooking and whatnot, that gives us more time to work on the ritual for Azkaban.”

“And keep up on tracking down Greyback…” Hermione fiddled with her paper. “I’m still not comfortable with this Ron. It’s strange enough that our best friend is a little baby who calls us mama and dada. Now you want us to participate in slavery…”

“Hermione, I agree with you totally about freeing the house elves. After everything you showed me about the history of slavery among muggles…” Ron shuddered. “But it doesn’t change the fact that freeing the elves would require the ICW, or at least the European Union of Magical Nations, to unanimously agree to end the magical contract between the races. Otherwise, the conservatives who cling to their enslaved elves will just breed more, no matter how many individuals we free. Someday, we can address it more thoroughly, and get the practice banned, but for now… we cant fix everything Hermione. We cant even find Greyback, or get Sirius out of prison. Let’s just… help who we can, yeah? And right now, we can help Dobby.”

“Its not that I don’t want to help him! I do! Its just…”

Ron stood up, and made his way to his wife’s side of the table. He put his arms around her, and she leaned in. 

“You want to fix the big picture as quickly as you can, and it upsets you that the only part you can fix right now is the single detail in front of you. I understand. But Mione… can you imagine what Harry-the one we grew up with- would say if we could help Dobby, and didn’t jump to immediately.”

“He wouldn’t _say_ anything. He’d just go off and do it himself.”

They shared a laugh at that. 

“But he cant.” Hermione continued, as her spine stiffened. “So we have to do it for him.”

“There’s the face of the woman who punches ferrets!”

“Weasels too.” And before he could dodge, she socked him in the arm. 

“No! No hit daddy!” Harry yelled from his booster seat, funny pages torn and crumpled into balls and sippy cup tipped over. 

“Oh I’m sorry baby, you’re right.” Hermione cooed. “Mummy should save her hits for the bad guys, yes?”


	7. Rule number 6: Don't interract with your family, no matter how much you miss them. Nobody wants a tiem-traveling relative causing chaos.

Hermione watched from the doorway as Dobby, ears and hands still bandaged but new uniform pressed and clean, floated a toy train for Harry’s amusement. Harry, for his part, was attempting to use his blocks and train tracks to make an elevated rail. Every once in a while, he’d hold out a block and name a color, and Dobby would change the block. It was amazing how well the two already got on, and how much having a trusted babysitter opened up time for Ron and Hermione to get to work on… other things. Such as the mission they would attempt today. 

Ron came into the room, Hermione’s newest bag of holding over a shoulder, dragon leather robes strapped across the front and invisibility cloak over his arm. One of the normal kind bought in Knockturn, not the Deathly Hallow, obviously. “Ready to go?”

“Oh, yes. Dobby, we’ll be leaving now. We’ll return in a few hours. Should we run late, please make sure Harry gets to bed on time, and could you do the last few dishes as well? Other than that, you’re free to do as you like. Oh, and food is in the fridge! Harry’s second breakfast is in the container with the blue lid, since we woke him up so early he’ll probably be hungry in a bit, the lunch has a green lid, and dinner is red.”

“Yes Missus Wheezy!” the house elf responded, never taking his attention away from the little boy he played with. 

With a last look at Harry and Dobby, Hermione and Ron were out the door and apparated to the Burrow. 

They made their way up the hill towards the wards, but the second they got close enough to start scanning, Ron began cursing. “Unbelievable! This is it!? The wards Albus bloody Dumbledore himself put on my family!? These would barely stop muggle hooligans from spray-painting the front door, let alone Death Eaters!”

“Well, Bill did say that if the wards he built you when the war started were up when Pettigrew first tried to live with your family, he never would have gotten close to the house. I guess that explains that.”

Ron simply harumphed as he made a hole in the wards. “Unbelievable. Makes me wonder why Mum ever trusted that wanker.”

The couple made their way inside without setting off any alarms, nor did they seem to wake anyone when they climbed the stairs to the third level. 

They found Scabbers, just as they had suspected, curled up on Percy’s pillow. 

Two quick sleeping charms made sure that neither of the room’s inhabitants woke up. Once Pettigrew was shifted into his human form, Hermione placed a plastic capsule in his mouth, stuck to his teeth. Ron, meanwhile, cut off the sleave of the man’s robe, only to reveal unmarred skin. 

“I suppose that would be too easy.” Ron muttered. 

“That’s alright, we planned for this.” Hermione said. 

Their preparations complete, they then recast a variation of a sleeping charm on Pettigrew, such that he would only wake up to a noise within a certain range of volume and pitch. It had taken an entire week just to research the specific arithmantic calculations for the spell, but Hermione thought the effect would be well worth it. They then sent a light enervate to Percy, and sat in the corner of the room under the two black market invisibility cloaks to watch the fireworks.

Percy woke up with a gasp, saw the grown man in his bed, and did what any eight year old would; screamed for his mother. He scrambled on the floor, still screaming, and crawled backwards to the corner, where he hit the wall so fast several stuffed animals came tumbling down. Ron watched them fall, saw one teddy bear in particular, and shuddered. Hermione decided not to comment, but took note of what it looked like, to make sure she never bought a similar one for Harry.

Molly, protective instincts firmly activated, stormed in with all the fury of a raging bull. The second she saw who her son was pointing too, Pettigrew was stupefied, incarceroused, and woken by Molly’s shrieked “WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY SON’S BED!”

The second he woke, Pettigrew’s teeth broke the capsule in his mouth, releasing the veritaserum. “Peter Pettigrew. I came here to hide from Sirius Black.”

“AND WHY THE HELL DID YOU NEED TO SLEEP IN MY CHILD’S BED TO DO THAT!”

“He wants me dead, but nobody would suspect a family pet.”

“Why? Did you do something bad? Damian Diggory says if we do anything bad, Sirus Black will get us.” Said a voice from the doorway. Arthur, who was already holding Ginny in one hand and George’s arm in the other, couldn’t seem to wrangle all the children at once. Charlie appeared and tried to drag Fred away, but not before Pettigrew spoke up.

“He knows I was a spy for You-Know-Who. He wants revenge for James and Lily.”

Molly Weasley gasped, and Bill immediately charged down the stairs. “I’ll floo the Aurors!”

“Take your time dear.” Molly said. “Children, with your father. Mr. Pettigrew and I are going to have a little talk about why you don’t work for evil child-murderers. “

Ron and Hermione, deciding it was best they be gone before the aurors arrived, used the stampede of children down the stairs to cover their retreat. 

They spent the rest of the day under the cloaks, observing the arrest and investigation. Well, at least, that’s what she told Ron they would do. Hermione had another purpose in mind. 

Any time he tried to protest them staking a spot in the parlor with the children, rather than upstairs or in the kitchen where the aurors were, Hermione just shushed her husband. 

She had seen the small drawer he had filled with pictures from the Prophet, carefully and lovingly cut out. Many were no more than the size of a galleon, the faces only just visible at all. He needed this, needed to see Fred alive and Bill smiling the way he couldn’t ever since his face was mauled. Ron needed to see that Ginny was alive and well, and George wasn’t stuck in a years long, grief fueled drunken depression, and Percy fitting into the family the way he hadn’t since he chose the Ministry. Even if the only way she could give him that was to be in the room with his siblings while their house was searched by law enforcement, the morning a dangerous criminal was found in Percy’s bed. 

She noticed that things were different, of course. She saw the small photograph, lovingly placed on a table all the children would slow down as they passed, Fred and George giving the frame a small pat with their hands or a kiss. She saw how, when the aurors let Charlie run upstairs to get a new nappy and onesie for Ginny, the maroon color of the outfit had Percy looking back down at the teddy he clutched in his hands, a teddy with a maroon ribbon about its neck….

But it wasn’t all bad. The twins were as loud and crazy as Hermione would have expected, but they seemed to know the lines better. When Percy clutched his little teddy and asked it to “tell baby brother they are all safe, and the bad man won’t get them now that the aurors took him away”, the twins let him be, and chose to play with Ginny instead, moving objects about while she shouted “up!” and “move”, directing them with a sanded down stick. 

When he wasn’t asking the teddy to pass messages on to his baby brother, Percy was with Ginny, reading her endless stories. These ones weren’t about Harry Potter though, these were handmade books, with illustrations in crayon, about the brave red dog named Ron who ran with his friends in the sky, and would get letters from his family on the ground, carried to him by a big brown bear in a maroon bowtie. 

Charlie and Bill seemed to watch their four siblings like eagles over their nests. At one point, when an auror came to ask Percy for a few more details, the little child grabbed both his big brother’s hands, and hid behind them shyly. Fred and George, apparently interpreting this as a signal Percy was uncomfortable, quickly split to opposite sides of the room, and while one distracted the auror with knock-knock jokes, the other mounted the stairs, and dropped confetti onto the auror from the banister. The grumpy auror huffed when he realized what was going on, but after that, a much kinder and younger female auror entered and asked Percy to answer the questions. Once she shook the teddy bear’s hand and introduced herself, Percy answered all the questions with the precision and detail Hermione would have expected of him.

When the invisible couple finally followed the last auror out of the Burrow, Hermione finally spoke up. 

“We could find a way to make contact you know. Even if… even if we didn’t do it as ourselves.”

Ron seemed to seriously consider that for several minutes. Hermione chose not to rush him. It was a nice day, so when they reached the road, she tore off the cloak and glamoured and notice-me-noted them. 

When he finally spoke, it was merely to say, “Let’s head home.” and apparate out. 

Hermione frowned but followed. She’d get out what was bothering him eventually.


End file.
